Sports columnist, author Feinstein dies at age 69

Back to the scene of the sublime. The Royal Melbourne Golf Club not only is the crown jewel of Australia’s famed Sandbelt region and among the best courses on the planet, it’s also the site of the International’s only victory in the Presidents Cup (1998). Of course, that same statement was loud and clear in 2011 when Royal Melbourne hosted the biennial competition for the second time, but as it returns for a third this week, the Internationals are saddled with a 1-10-1 record overall. Needless to say, the hosts have chips on their shoulders. Lots of them. Too many to go around, in fact. So, it’s proper that the veteran with maybe the broadest shoulders in the sport is out front leading the charge. International Captain Ernie Els celebrated with his squad 21 years ago (after contributing a 3-1-1 record himself) and he was there eight years ago when the U.S. avenged, 19-15. Now, he’ll navigate seven Presidents Cup debutants in the hopes of dismantling the juggernaut that is the visiting Americans, and in an age against the machine that is player-captain and 82-time PGA TOUR winner Tiger Woods. More on the event, the course and other nuggets beneath the full-field Power Rankings. POWER RANKINGS: PRESIDENTS CUP If you’re a loyalist to the Power Rankings for PGA TOUR events, the same for any team competition can come across as curious if consumed similarly. Furthermore, this Power Rankings is constructed in advance of the knowledge of partnerships, matchups, momentum and other variables that will contribute to the final score. In light of that, you’re encouraged to accept the ranking in the context of potential impact on the competition. Do the Internationals need a perfect week to prevail? Probably not, but with the pendulum of success over time swayed so favorably toward the Americans, there’s an argument that even a perfect week wouldn’t be enough to take down the visitors with puffed chests. Even when Brooks Koepka, he of four victories in the majors and current position atop the Official World Golf Ranking, exited for extended rest for his left knee, in an unintentional quid pro quo, Els had to replace four-time Presidents Cup veteran Jason Day, who withdrew due to an injured back. However, no matter which team wins, no one will rush to cite addition by subtraction of either talent. If the underdog hosts are keen on reasoning to argue that they have the upper hand early, they’re 3-0-1 in four-ball in the two previous editions at Royal Melbourne. For just the second time in the last 11 Presidents Cups, four-ball leads off this week with five matches on Thursday. Five foursomes matches will follow on Friday before four each of four-ball (morning) and foursomes (afternoon) command Saturday’s schedule. The Presidents Cup will conclude on Sunday with 12 matches of singles. This will be the third straight Presidents Cup in which only 30 points are up for grabs. The first to 15½ wins. If both teams total 15, they will share the title until meeting again at Quail Hollow Club in early fall of 2021. The battleground is the Composite Course at Royal Melbourne. Twelve holes of the West and six from the East blend for a par 71 with only three par 3s and two par 5s. At 7,047 yards, it’s about 50 yards longer than how it was set up in 2011. The most significant modifications affected the par-4 first, par-5 second and par-4 16th holes, all in the vicinity of 10-25 yards longer. The par-4 18th has been reduced by 10 yards. Of course, pars and yardage on a short course mean little in head-to-head competition. Moreover, Royal Melbourne is renown for the substantive value of quality over distance. Generous, running Bermudagrass fairways lead into open-door fairway bunkers. The absence of primary rough yields infinity edges of the hazards – approximately 200 of them in sum across the course – the ubiquitous characteristic of which is evident flush against the bentgrass greens that could run up to 13 feet on the Stimpmeter. The firmer and faster the course plays, particularly since distance off the tee is not a prerequisite to force even a halve, the more that Royal Melbourne can serve in the role as a governor of American domination in the Presidents Cup. Both captains are benefited by what is not an insignificant change in the format since 2017. Each of the 24 participants is required to play in only one of the four 2-on-2 matches before all tee it up in singles. Prior to this year, they were required to play in at least two team sessions. It’s one way for a squad not hitting on all cylinders in real time to adjust on the fly. With no rain expected and daytime highs in the upper 60s and low 70s, the only natural element worth attention is the invisible. Moderate-to-strong winds will challenge throughout. This could help balance the competition and it will also expose anyone struggling to find his game in foursomes and singles. Low ball flights and experience in playing the game on the ground are valuable tools.

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In retrospect, maybe we should have anticipated Scottie Scheffler’s PGA TOUR Player of the Year season. After all, Scheffler backed up Korn Ferry Tour Player of the Year honors in 2019 with the PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year award the following season. He played well enough in 2021 to get a captain’s pick on the U.S. Ryder Cup team that beat Europe in the fall, even before his first PGA TOUR victory. He was clearly on an upward trajectory, but his four-month flurry of highlights still came as a shock. Let’s look back at Scheffler’s rapid rise – and analyze what’s changed about his performances since the early summer. Scottie’s spring ascent On the morning of Super Bowl Sunday, 2022, Scheffler was inarguably the best player in the world without a PGA TOUR win yet to his credit. At 15th in the Official World Golf Ranking, his WM Phoenix Open playoff victory over Patrick Cantlay that day made him the highest-ranked American player in OWGR history at the time of his first PGA TOUR title (a record broken later in the season by Will Zalatoris, ranked 14th). That win marked the beginning of one of the most dominant runs seen on TOUR in recent years. Not even one month after he won in Phoenix, Scheffler captured the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, and three weeks after winning at Bay Hill, Scheffler rose to number one in the World Ranking with his victory at the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play. The 42 days between Scheffler’s first win and his claim on the No. 1 ranking was by far the fastest ascent ever seen on the PGA TOUR or DP World Tour. The run hit its crescendo when he won the Masters Tournament two weeks later. Scheffler was excellent through the bag on the way to his first major win, ranking in the top 10 in the field in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, Approach, and Around the Green. He was in the top 10 in Strokes Gained: Putting, too, until his four-putt on the final green. Scheffler now had four wins on the season, the first winner of the green jacket to reach that number on the PGA TOUR since Arnold Palmer in 1960. What fueled his rise Scheffler had been well above average in the 2020-21 PGA TOUR season, ranking 32nd in scoring average and 33rd in Strokes Gained: Total. His red-hot spring of ’22 owed to a few dramatic improvements. Scheffler ranked 45th in greens in regulation and 83rd in Strokes Gained: Approach per round in 2020-21. Solid, but not spectacular. By the end of May, he had vaulted to 13th in SG: Approach and a lofty 3rd in rate of greens hit. His improved wedge play was a significant change, as well. In 2020-21, Scheffler ranked 157th on the PGA TOUR in average proximity to the hole from 50-125 yards away. On June 1, he was up exactly 100 spots in that statistic – to 57th. The differential meant he went from being one foot farther away than the average PGA TOUR player’s approach from that range – to one foot closer. As if these improvements weren’t enough, he got better on the greens, too. In each of his first two full seasons on TOUR, Scheffler had hovered right around the statistical baseline for Strokes Gained: Putting among qualified players. He was at -0.05 strokes per round in 2020, and +0.02, in 2021. But in his 10 starts from February through May, Scheffler gained more than half-a-stroke on the field, per round, on the greens. In his victory in Phoenix, Scheffler ranked 2nd in Strokes Gained: Putting, one of just three times in his entire PGA TOUR career where he ranked in the top 10 in a tournament field in that statistic. The story since then Scheffler hasn’t maintained the pace he enjoyed in the spring, but still has recorded four top-10 finishes in his last 10 starts. And he’s improved in one big marker. From February through May, he averaged 1.32 Strokes Gained: Ball Striking per round and hit 70.9% of his greens in regulation. Since then, he’s averaged 1.70 strokes per round striking it and hit a sterling 74.1% of greens in regulation. That’s the good news. You can probably deduce what the bad will be at this point: His putting numbers have dropped off significantly. Since June 1, Scheffler is losing more than one-third of a stroke to the field per round on the greens, a rate that ranks 143rd of 180 qualified players in that span. Specifically, it’s been the shorter putts that just aren’t falling like they were in the spring. From February through May, Scheffler made 61.2% of his putts from 5-10 feet. Since then, he’s fallen off to 45% – well beneath the TOUR average make rate of 56.3% from that range. Things are looking up, though. After some typical autumn tinkering with his gear, Scheffler put the Scotty Cameron putter he used for all four of his wins last season back in the bag over the weekend at the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba. The result was the lowest final-round score of his PGA TOUR career (62) and his fewest putts per green in regulation for any single PGA TOUR event (1.60) in 17 months. At the Cadence Bank Houston Open last year Scheffler ranked 2nd in the field in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green in a runner-up finish. If he’s rediscovered his magic on the greens, it could be a very happy homecoming this week for the affable Texan.

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